From Clifford Baudains.
ONE has to wonder how much the current consultation regarding tax increases is about plugging the black hole and how much is bout finding new income to perpetuate the irresponsible spending our current assortment of unstatesmanlike States Members are so fond of.

For a start, the black hole that threatens a £100m hole in our finances is directly because the States adopted a zero-ten tax policy.

As that policy has been known since 1998 to be contrary to EU tax directives, and we will therefore have to eventually abandon it, why not do it now and remove that £100m tax shortfall, the burden of which the States are trying to shift from business to individuals?

Secondly, there is no indication whatsoever of a desire by our States to cut wasteful spending.

We have just seen millions wasted on Victoria Avenue. First it was the shambles at Bel Royal, then the unsatisfactory resurfacing, and now it’s the design. How long, I fear, before serious accidents result from the kerb intrusions into the westbound traffic lanes?

A motorist should always look ahead to anticipate events, but cannot do this on the westbound section because if he does, he will suddenly be confronted with a kerb jutting out in front of him.

Whoever designed this should be fired. Of course, they never will be, as public servants are immune to the strictures of accountability and responsibility that prevail in the private sector.

It is sad that our motley crew of ministers clearly cannot understand that if accountability existed, many of the expensive cock-ups wouldn’t occur in the first place.

Maybe that nurse wouldn’t have lost her life. Maybe millions wouldn’t have been wasted on the shambolic Haut de la Garrene fiasco – not only on the abuse of public trust and misuse of public funds, but what of the unnecessary destruction of the property? How much will it cost to repair the police’s unnecessary vandalism of that property? Why, for instance, cut up a whole floor when removing two floorboards would have provided the necessary access?

If further proof that spending continues unabated, one only has to look at Social Security. First of all, there are free prescriptions, when better use of the money might have been to include dentistry in the subsidies. Then there was the waste of money to implement a totally unnecessary scheme for GPs.

Social Security’s latest wheeze is to spend millions ‘getting Islanders back to work’ into jobs that don’t exist because States policies have made running a business in Jersey a near impossibility. And that’s apart from abandoning tourism, agriculture, fisheries, etc.

There is an important lesson to be learned here. We must not criticise our States Members for the mess they put us in. After all, it was the public who selected those individuals in the first place. If the public are incapable of choosing wisely, then it is they who are to blame – and even more so those who don’t vote – rather than the politicians.

When I was a States Deputy I would sometimes, during another Member’s rambling speech, imagine I was going away for an extended holiday and would look around the Chamber to see which States Member I considered competent enough to run my business. Out of 53, there were only usually two or three.

Yet those 53 people are running a £700 million business called Jersey.

• Read more letters to the editor in today’s Jersey Evening Post